Berwyn mayor battles for unity

Discord takes hold among party allies

May 04, 2006|By Joseph Ruzich, Special to the Tribune.

Berwyn Mayor Michael O'Connor inherited a City Hall last year that was under federal investigation and embarrassed by its police chief, who was indicted on charges he helped beat a man outside a Forest Park steakhouse.

O'Connor, whose Independent Voters of Berwyn party pretty much took over running the city, promised change and "a new beginning." But almost a year later, O'Connor is facing increased resistance from the City Council, including many who were elected with him.

Things have gotten so bad that one fellow party member on the council says O'Connor is not complying with the law, while another is pushing to strip some of O'Connor's powers by hiring a town manager.

O'Connor last week proposed a goal-setting seminar for board members. It was an idea suggested to him by Oak Park Village President David Pope.

"President Pope felt the services provided were very successful in pulling his town board together and pointing them in a direction that all could agree on," O'Connor said of the proposed $125-an-hour, 16-hour seminar. Council members have not approved the idea, but it would be discussed again at a future meeting.

"Some of the aldermen have some differences in opinions on certain subjects," O'Connor said in explaining the reason for the seminar. "I thought we could sit down and talk about them with the idea of where we want to go."

Ald. Santiago "Jim" Ramos, who is often a swing vote for the mayor, said there is a personality clash between the aldermen and the mayor.

"Many of us ran together with the mayor on the Independent ticket," Ramos said. "Unfortunately, we started seeing things differently when we were elected."

Ald. Nona Chapman, an Independent and once a close ally of O'Connor's, has been challenging him recently on a wide range of issues, including mayoral appointments that she said have not been in compliance with the law. According to a document distributed to the board at its meeting April 25, Chapman said an independent legal counsel told her the council should look into the issue of how much power the mayor has when it comes to hiring and firing department heads.

"We need to keep the integrity of our city government," Chapman wrote in the letter.

Berwyn operates under a strong mayoral government where O'Connor is also the city administrator, giving him the power to hire and fire heads of departments. But Chapman believes that certain wording in the appointment ordinance allows the board and other departments to be more involved in hiring and firing decisions.

The board has increasingly voted against the mayor and denied 20 reappointments. Without an objection from the mayor, the appointments were deferred to the Administration Committee for inspection and will be reviewed again after the law is reinterpreted.

O'Connor said he doesn't mind being questioned on the appointments. "I've never appointed anyone who wasn't a professional and didn't have a high regard for professionalism in their job," he said.

The board denied O'Connor's requestto replace Library Director Bill Hensley and voted that Hensley could keep his job, drawing applause from the audience.

O'Connor "would not tell us why he wanted to fire Mr. Hensley," Ramos said. "Unfortunately, that happens often. We ask him why he's doing something, and he doesn't give us a response. That irritates members of the council."

O'Connor said he never had the chance to tell aldermen because he was on vacation. "Ald. Chapman [who is a library liaison] knows exactly why I didn't want to reappoint him," the mayor said. "I think Bill Hensley is a great guy and I didn't want to attack and tell the whole world why I didn't want to reappoint him."

Another critic of the mayor is former party ally Ald. Joel Erickson. At a meeting last month, Erickson expressed support for hiring a city manager. In essence, that position would replace O'Connor as a city administrator, as well as eliminate some of his power. Erickson's proposal is under consideration.

"This is coming from someone who has only walked into my office twice in a year--once to get a glass of water," O'Connor said of Erickson.

O'Connor strongly disagrees with the call for a city manager, saying voters want the person they elect to be in charge.

"I always felt that a mayor is someone who can care about Berwyn [instead of] having someone from outside the city come in and be a mercenary and run the city," O'Connor said.

When O'Connor and his party won the 2005 election, it ended a long and powerful run by the Berwyn Regular Democratic Organization, of which former Mayor Thomas Shaughnessy and indicted Director of Public Safety Frank Marzullo were members.

Under their tenure, federal authorities began looking into city spending on public works and revitalization projects as well as Police Department and Recreation Department spending since 1998.

After the election, seven of nine council members were from O'Connor's party, along with the treasurer and clerk. People were optimistic, and now, even with the bickering, O'Connor said the city is better off.

"Look what we've done in just less than a year," he said. "We reshaped the budget, we're spurring economic development, property values are going up and we now have a respectable police force.